
24
-
SABBATH-SCHOOL LES
S
ON QUARTERLY
14.
What did one of the soldiers do ? What fol-
lowed? Verse 34.
15.
What testimony does John bear? Verse 35.
16.
What type here met its fulfilment in Jesus?
Verses 36, 37. See Ex. 12 : 46 ; Nurn. 9 : 12. See also
Ps. 22 : 16, 17 ; Zech. 12 : 10.
Notes
1. The sixth hour mentioned by John (chapter 19:14) seems
to be Roman time, or six o'clock in the morning. John wrote his
Gospel many years later than the other evangelists. The sixth
hour of Matthew was noon. The sun was darkened; nature was
convulsed at the death of her Author. The heavens were clad
in the garb of mourning, the darkness lasting from noon until
3
P.M.
It was not an eclipse of the sun, for a. total eclipse of
the sun can not last at any place above four minutes, while this
darkness lasted three hours. Hales's Chronology, volume 1, page
70, quotes from an old Roman document,.written by Aurelius Cas-
siodorius Senator, about
A.D.
514, as follows: "In the consulate
of Tiberius Ccesar Augustus V and /Elias Sejanus (u. C. 784,
A.D.
31), our Lord Jesus Christ suffered on the 8th of the Calends
of April (25th of March); when there happened such an eclipse
of the sun as was never seen before nor since."
Hales continues: "In this year, and in this day, agree also
the Council of Casarea,
A.D.
196, or 198; the Alexandrian Chron-
icle, Maximus Monadeus, Nieephorus Constantinus, Cedremus,"
and approved for this year though on a different date by Euse-
bius and Epiphanius, helper, Bucher, Petavius.
"This obscuration of the sun must have been preternatural, in
its extent, duration, and opposition of the moon, at full, to the
sun. It was observed at Heliopolis in Egypt, by Dionysius, the
areopagite, afterwards the illustrious convert of Paul at Athens,
Acts 17:34, who, in a letter to the martyr Polycarp, describes
his own and his companion, the sophist Apollophanes' astonishment
at the phenomenon, when they saw the darkness commence at the
eastern limb of the sun, and proceed to the western, till the whole
was eclipsed; and then regrade backwards, from the western to the
eastern, till his light was fully restored; which they attributed
to the miraculous passage of the moon across the sun's disk.
Apollophanes exclaimed, as if divining the cause, These, 0 good
Dionysius, are the vicissitudes of divine events! ' DionYsius an-
swered, 'Either the Deity suffers, or He sympathizes with the